Fabrication of electronic circuit elements using liquid deposition techniques is of profound interest as such techniques provide potentially low-cost alternatives to conventional mainstream amorphous silicon technologies for electronic applications such as thin-film transistors (TFTs), light-emitting diodes (LEDs), RFID tags, photovoltaics, etc. However the deposition and/or patterning of functional electrodes, pixel pads, and conductive traces, lines and tracks which meet the conductivity, processing, and cost requirements for practical applications have been a great challenge.
Solution-processable conductors are of great interest for printed electronic applications as electrodes, conducting lines in thin-film transistors, RFID tags, photovoltaics, etc. Metal nanoparticle-based inks represent a promising class of materials for printed electronics. However, most metal nanoparticles require large molecular weight stabilizers to ensure proper solubility and stability. These large molecular weight stabilizers inevitably raise the annealing temperatures of the metal nanoparticles above 200° C. in order to burn off the stabilizers, which temperatures are incompatible with most plastic substrates and can cause damage thereto.
Further, the use of lower molecular weight stabilizers can also be problematic, as smaller size stabilizers often do not provide desired solubility and often fail to effectively prevent coalescence or aggregation of the metal nanoparticles before use.
One of the advantages achieved by embodiments herein is that the addition of a destabilizer to stabilized metal nanoparticles during or after the deposition of the metal nanoparticles interferes with the interaction between the stabilizer and the metal nanoparticles or decomposes the stabilizer molecules into smaller derivatives. As a result, a stable metal nanoparticle solution for liquid deposition is obtained, and also the post-deposition thermal annealing temperatures can be much lower due to the removal of the stabilizer following liquid deposition.